Smith signed a two-year contract extension with the Storm at the start of this year, meaning he is tied to the club until the end of the 2020 campaign with Dale Finucane and Bromwich seemingly in the box seat to take over the honour in 2021.

But Finucane is fully aware of where he stands in the pecking order and thinks Bromwich's seniority in age and appearances for Melbourne means he will have to wait that little bit longer for his chance to lead the Storm into battle.

"[Captaining the Storm] would definitely be something I would love to do," Finucane told NRL.com.

"Jesse has been at the club a bit longer than I have and is a little bit older than I am, so I think Jesse will be next in line to captain the club."

Many experts have tipped the Storm to be a big slider in 2019 following the loss of champion fullback Billy Slater, fan favourite Ryan Hoffman and Queensland Origin prop Tim Glasby.

But Finucane has warned the naysayers to write off Melbourne at their peril and believes the Storm are more than capable of improving on their grand final finish last year and going all the way in 2019.

"We have moved on from the grand final loss now," he said.

"We addressed it at the end of the year and spoke about it, but it is something that has been put behind us now and we now have new challenges ahead of us

"We can look at what we did in the grand final and learn from that experience, but dwelling on it is not going to do anything good for us.

"We are looking forward to our next trial game which is against the Warriors and then the Cowboys and then round one against the Broncos."

Finucane does not believe his role on the field will change too much now he has the vice-captain tag, but he does expect his responsibilities off the field to increase as both he and Bromwich take on some of the extra tasks that Smith has performed at the Storm since he took the top job way back in 2006.

And while Finucane will need to increase his output off the field this season, he doesn't plan to do too much different on the field when he kicks off his fifth season in the famous purple jersey next month.

"My main focus for 2019 is playing really well for the Melbourne Storm and for us to go as well as we can," Finucane added.

"On a personal note it would be great that if I was playing consistently that I got the opportunity to play some representative football at some stage throughout the year.

"But just starting the year consistently and playing really well for the Storm is my main aim."